A barleywine-strength ale built on wheat instead of an all-barley grist. Brewed with at least half wheat malt, it pours gold to deep amber and delivers high gravity, full body, and rich malt sweetness, often with bready, honeyish, or caramel character. The wheat lends a softer, smoother profile than a traditional barleywine.
In the glass
Origin
Wheat wine is one of the few beer styles invented outright by American craft brewers. It grew from the homebrewing scene of the 1980s, applying the high-gravity logic of barleywine to a wheat-heavy grist. The style’s creation is generally credited to homebrewer Phil Moeller, who brought his recipe to Sacramento’s Rubicon Brewing, where he became the first brewmaster in 1987 and served a Winter Wheat Wine in 1988 to mark the brewery’s first anniversary. The beer was a rich, caramel-laced ale topping 10 percent alcohol, and it found a following on the West Coast. The style spread slowly through the craft industry over the following decades, with later examples such as Boulevard’s barrel-aged Harvest Dance broadening its reach. Because it leans on wheat for at least half its grist, it carries a smoother, rounder character than the barleywine it descends from.
Notes
Wheat wine is the wheat-malt cousin of barleywine, and the comparison is the most useful way to place it. Both are intense, sweet, high-gravity sipping ales, but the heavy wheat fraction gives the wheat wine a softer body and a slightly different malt sweetness, more bready and honeyed than the deep toffee of a classic barleywine. It is a slow, after-dinner beer, and the bigger examples reward cellaring. Despite the name, there is no grape or wine in it; “wine” simply signals the strength.
Defining examples
Two Brothers Bare Tree Weiss Wine·Smuttynose Wheat Wine (discontinued)·Rubicon Winter Wheat Wine (Rubicon closed 2017)·Boulevard Harvest Dance Wheat Wine (retired)